Siblings
“In bringing many sons and daughters to glory, it was fitting that God, for whom and through whom everything exists, should make the pioneer of their salvation perfect through what he suffered. Both the one who makes people holy and those who are made holy are of the same family.
So Jesus is not ashamed to call them brothers and sisters.”
Hebrews 2:10-11
Dear Friends,
My four siblings and I were homeschooled until high school with my older brother paving the scary way forward for the rest of his sisters. He was a Junior when I began as a Freshman. I looked maybe twelve with braces on my teeth. I felt totally alone as I walked onto a high school campus in my awkwardness, but I did have a very cool big brother. I nervously walked up to him playing hacky-sack in the concrete courtyard, laughing with friends and I realized I had no hope of being included. He was rightfully embarrassed by his weird, little sister.
This passage from Hebrews tells a different story of family—one where human beings are grafted in, adopted into Christ Jesus as siblings where joy is the product, not shame. This is profoundly inspiring and gracious because according to the world’s ways of thinking, Jesus has every right to be ashamed of me. When I malign his name, when I act opposite of his character, when I harm myself or other people Jesus doesn’t look at me, embarrassed to be connected to me. Jesus doesn’t turn to another and say, “Well, we’re not BIOLOGICALLY related,” attempting to distance himself from me. He doesn’t give the excuse that I must be adopted since our characters rarely line up (btw, using adoption as a joke is not funny for anyone).
Thankfully, Jesus doesn’t live into the world’s ways of thinking. Jesus isn’t held captive by our tit-for-tat, eye-for-eye standard. Grace muddles any rule or law, blurring equations and messing up formulas.
Disruptive grace that makes us holy.
Jesus sees me and you as the ones being made holy by the Holy One. This is a process, a journey, a way of discipleship bent on daily life-giving choices of love for God, self, and others. But friends, Jesus isn’t throwing you into this becoming-holy-like-he-is-holy life on your own. Jesus is the pioneer, the leader, the author, the one who made a way for every person. And in his coming, he suffered a wilderness existence, was treated unjustly, betrayed, grieved deeply from loss, never got a fair trial, and was crucified. But he also started a new kind of family.
Jesus came before, as pioneer.
Jesus was present in suffering.
Jesus brings a future hope of new life.
Jesus sees how you are held captive to your past, and he wants to set you free.
Jesus sees how you suffer in this wilderness space and is present with you in it.
Jesus sees your anxiety and fear of death and brings you a new hopeful perspective of what’s to come. Oh death, where is your sting?
Friends, Jesus looks at you with the loving compassion of a sibling unashamed or embarrassed by any part of you. Never once does Jesus hope to distance himself from you or write you off. He desires you to draw near, come close, and rest in his affirming love.
Sometimes the wilderness is what allows me to see Jesus as the beautiful, kind, present, compassionate, and loving Holy One that He is. And it’s there, in my suffering, anxiety, or lack that I am made holy. What a profoundly disruptive grace.
With (love),
Bethany